Print Journalism: Survival by Page View?

The battered world of print journalism received another punch to its ethics this week as USA Today announced that it was seriously considering paying bonuses to its writers based on online page views. In a world where print reporters — unlike their broadcast brethren — barely make a living wage, additional income might be greeted with the enthusiasm of a Pulitzer Prize.

I, and many of the writers I know, however, am severely disappointed in this proposal. Before I went to journalism school, I once believed that newspaper advertisements were there only to fill in the holes when we were short on copy. That fantasy was soon crushed. Still, those of us who achieved our sheepish sheepskin in an era when President Nixon was bringing together his team of White House plumbers, pride ourselves in a work ethic based on the content of our takes, not the world’s take of our content. Some of us who made dozens of phone calls, researched hundreds of sources, and sometimes visited strange dumpsters in the middle of the night, don’t appreciate having our work measured by how many folks come to our story because Aunt Matilda sent someone a misdirected link to a cute cat story. Journalism is already a Survivor episode in the making, and if I’m going to get voted off the island I want it to be because my writing is lousy, not because it touches subjects not interesting to the uneducated masses.

USA Today is no stranger to mimicking the world of broadcast news. It was born in 1982, a time when its readership delighted in being force-fed their information in tiny capsules between commercials on both broadcast and cable television. USA Today would be deliberately distributed in sidewalk boxes that resembled a television set to show a television-hooked America that printed television — in full color —could garner far more readership than the multi-page jumping news stories that “cluttered” the black and white and unread all over establishment press.

Just a decade before it been the best of times and the worst of times for those of us who had chosen a newspaper career. All over the country, J-schools were about to fill up with kids fascinated by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein ready to find a Deep Throat of their own. First, however, they would have to find a newspaper that had jobs available. That was already becoming difficult, as newspapers like the Philadelphia Bulletin, the Washington Star, and my own Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, were melting away like so much hot type. Many of us who worked in the newspaper industry discovered a new meaning for “below the fold,” and it was spelled “u-n-e-m-p-l-o-y-m-e-n-t.”

As the number of print newspaper carcasses mounted, the idea of a so-called “national newspaper” that would measure news stories not by the column inch, but a Twitter-like 140-character “who, what, where, when, and how,” was roundly denigrated throughout the newspaper world. Among the few believers was Ganett executive Al Neuharth, who had already “colorized” a Florida newspaper that would become the model for the national publication. While many of us who worked at “reputable” newspapers found this idea to be so much “fish wrap,” USA Today became a success story, and still maintains one of the highest circulations of print newspapers.

USA Today, of course realizes that the future of print is in electronic pixels — not hot or cold type. In an electronic world where anyone can be a publisher, even powerful voices must share an infinite soap box with those trained in dancing to Google algorithms. Just as USA Today softened the hard news of American journalism’s childhood into printed sound-bites, it now is threatening to change the way news is published in a free society.

When USA Today was born, television network executives began to tear down the brick wall between their news and entertainment divisions. For some, news has become “infotainment,” subject to the rules and whims of large advertisers. News organizations that once spent large sums of money on international bureaus, and worldwide political developments are now comfortable with “informing” the public on the latest trends in unscientific health and wellness, or the machinations of Hollywood stars.

So it may become with the USA Today concept of being paid for directing traffic to its site. Instead of informing readers, this could be the first step in the few remaining responsible news organizations simply capitulating to that which is “hot.”